Content Marketing: How Much Is Too Much?

As we talk to various organizations, we explain to them the tiers of our content creation service, which are based upon the number of articles we deliver for them on a weekly or monthly basis. And even at the lower tiers of our offering, CEOs and CMOs typically say “wow – that’s a lot of content; that’s more than enough for us.”

But the numbers show that, generally speaking, more content is better.

(Of course, it needs to be quality content. Organizations that churn out a lot of crap are just clogging up the Internet. Quality must come first; otherwise you will napalm the bridge of trust you’re trying to build with your prospects and customers. If it’s poorly written or produced, you’re doomed. If you’re selling too hard, you’re doomed. If it isn’t delivering customer-centric value, you’re doomed.)

Consider this statistic, courtesy of Hubspot – 92 percent of businesses publishing multiple articles per day, every day, acquired customers directly through their blogs. That is a lot of content and a lot of work, but it’s obviously the way to build an audience – if there is a lot of quality information to consume, the audience will return frequently to do so. The more they return, the more open they are to participating in a conversation.

This makes perfect sense for people who understand the concepts behind news publishing. News organizations have always tried to build an audience by providing credible information, providing a lot of it, and providing it first. If you do that on a day-in, day-out basis, you build an audience and you find yourself at the center of the conversation. That builds an audience that believes in that news organization and is more likely to follow the organization – hence the historical power of editorial endorsements from newspapers.

For brands, the principle is the same. Any business that becomes a go-to source of information in its industry will build an audience that trusts in it. As newspapers and broadcasters have known for years, once you have this audience you can direct them in certain ways.

That’s not a cynical statement (although some news organizations through the years have been cynical about what they push their audience towards). The goals of a content marketing strategy are to build trust, engage in a conversation, and draw in the audience in order to ultimately make a sale. That’s not cynical, because a well-done content strategy creates smarter buyers; high quality content educates the audience and this is a good thing for most business.

So, back to the question of how much is too much. If your organization is not producing any content whatsoever right now, you are most assuredly falling behind. Even if you have to start slowly, you need to start. But the goal should be much greater than that – can you publish something daily? Can you post something more than once a day? If you have a savvy, hard-working team charged with executing your strategy day-in and day-out, you will win new customers.